Baker Academic

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Skinner's WATSA the Gospel of Thomas? - Le Donne

Sweet fancy Moses, this is a good book! Let's be honest for a moment - just between you and me - shall we? It's impossible to keep up with everything that's going on in New Testament studies. It took me three years to become conversant with the world of Acts scholarship. And I would consider those folks close neighbors to my field. So when one steps away from the Gospel of Thomas for a decade and then peeks over the fence, the entire landscape looks different. My goodness, you folks have been busy!

So about a month ago I popped into the Flora Lamson Hewitt Library in Berkeley to check out five or six titles by April DeConick and Petr Pokorný when I stumbled upon this little number by Chris Skinner. I had seen it online, but I hadn't picked it up. I am so grateful that I did! (By the way, this is what the world will miss when our brick and mortar libraries decrease.) It is a perfect addition to the WATSA series. Skinner introduces the field in a concise way with emphasis on the latest developments.

Is there merit to DeConick's "rolling corpus" theory? Is Thomas a Gnostic text? And what do we mean by that? Perhaps we ought to consider Thomas as an ascetic, middle-Platonic, Syrian mystic, or wisdom text... and how do these relate to the Gnostic tendencies of the book's development? Any simplistic labeling of Thomas as "Gnostic" without qualification will bring shame upon one's household, it seems.

Really, chapter four is worth far more than the pocket change it will take to buy this book. Skinner speaks to the relationship between the biblical Gospels and Thomas. He concludes with a chapter that relates Thomas scholarship to historical Jesus studies. The entire book can be read in one sitting (I recommend a heavy dose of De La Soul while you read it) and will bring you up to speed on a quickly developing conversation.

1 comment:

Less related to the topic at hand: sometimes I get utterly depressed that there is just so much to learn. I try to be brushed up with all Biblical fields on at least a broad level, but like you said, even focusing on one thing for just a year or two seems like I miss out on major developments. And that's just for the subjects I've bothered to pay attention to.

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Le Donne, Keith, Pitre, Crossley, Jacobi, Rodríguez

James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

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Jesus and the Last Supper

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Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance and Text